Not to Orlando after last visiting in June. Not from 10 down in the fourth quarter.

They were back to being competitors, and that's why their loss Sunday to the Magic will stand as a victory in the long run.

The masters of the obvious will call this a low point, the team's first three-game skid with Pau Gasol. The real truth is that the Lakers laid out there: high-intensity effort, same as they brought last spring when they were good enough to be NBA champions while losing lost five out of 11 postseason road games.

It's that difficult to win on the road against focused, good teams, so no shame in not quite pulling it out Sunday.

The Magic showed up playing well, riding a four-game winning streak, and motivated after countless days spent sitting in the treatment room at their training facility, where there hangs a photo of Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson dejectedly watching the Lakers celebrate the championship on Orlando's home floor.

"That was just a battle," Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said. "That was much more a battle than a basketball game. It was extremely physical, both teams fought extremely hard the entire way."

As usual in their post-title season, the Lakers ran into a team that fundamentally wanted it more. For a change, the Lakers played like they wanted it, too.

"I saw what I wanted to see," Kobe Bryant said afterward. "If we play with this kind of effort, it's going to be hard for a team to beat us four games in a series."

Bryant blew key defensive assignments down the stretch, cost the team a likely overtime by shooting with his foot on the 3-point line, and then missed the tying final shot over Matt Barnes before walking away while Barnes preened out and signaled No. 1 with his index finger.

Yet Bryant could hardly contain his postgame excitement.

He felt good enough to reveal the true gist of his comments to teammates Saturday, words that had been cloaked in Phil Jackson's summation of them as a reminder of "determination."

"I cursed them out," Bryant said, smiling.

There's no happy ending to this story yet. Work remains to be done.

Jackson praised Derek Fisher for "a great job out there" in the team's heightened focus on stopping penetration but called Jordan Farmar's fourth-quarter performance "disconcerting."

Both Andrew Bynum and Ron Artest overdid it with fouls, and Orlando's 39 foul shots were seven beyond the previous season high allowed by the Lakers. And the Lakers shot just 37.5 percent, with Artest asking for patience in his triangle education by saying: "I'm going to find a way. This is just practice."

Bryant didn't exactly live up to his own demands about improved defense, leaving Barnes enough room at the 3-point line to sink the game's key shot with 1:10 to play.

Bryant also went gambling for a leaping block against Howard in the final minute instead of just offering solid weak-side help. Gasol, whose frustration before his flagrant foul on Howard was escalated by Bryant not helping him in transition defense, kept his eyes glued to Bryant as he walked across the court after the whistle — and then just had to say something to the team leader.

On offense, Gasol again only got to do what Bryant left for him. Bryant took 16 of the Lakers' 25 shots in the final period, and Gasol's four shots were a dunk off Bryant's pass and three put-back chances after Bryant missed.

Gasol banged the same drum afterward, saying: "We need to move the ball a lot more."

Nevertheless, Gasol said: "It's not discouraging. It's just we can do it differently." His mood was buoyed by evident progress toward meeting his request of the team: "We need to be the challengers, not the challenged."

Afterward, Lamar Odom lay back Sunday on the very same bench where he had rested right next to a joyous Trevor Ariza last June 14, both needing a breather during the champagne spraying.

A few moments before, Odom had made the same joke the Lakers often made last spring in that dumpy Amway Arena locker room where a door can swing shut and lock guys inside the shower room: "Who is it?" Odom asked lightly when Gasol knocked on the door, trying to get out.

"We stay composed at all times," Odom said.

However, the Lakers have been losing ... and they finally understand they really can lose.

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